Hello Family,
I want to give you some news about our new place!
We can’t share the specific address of our new place just yet, as we need to wait until the current owners wrap up some of their business, but we are excited to share that our property in Nicaragua is a small surf resort right on the Pacific Ocean!
The current owners are Swiss, and built the boutique hotel from the ground up over the last 10 years. They have managed it from abroad for the last six years and it has done very well. It is in fantastic shape and in a great area, both rural, and yet close to a number of other resorts/towns where many families live. The current owner is my age, and his family still owns a house on a hill nearby where they come and spend half the year every year, the other half in Portugal. They moved onto some other business ventures and so decided to sell the resort.
This suits our vision perfectly as a “second footprint” property to move between Canada and Central America.
The resort part of the property is comprised of 6 dwelling places, a swimming pool, and a beautiful palapa (with chairs/table/kitchen and bathrooms) all fenced in a beautifully manicured 2 acres.
There is a small dirt road you must cross to go walk the beach side of the resort (1 acre) which has a lovely family restaurant, a yoga palapa, and a half pipe for skate boarding.
The beach is part of the “Emerald Coast” of Nicaragua – some of the best, most consistent surfing in the world. It is such world class surfing that the beaches surrounding the entire area are dedicated to surfing schools, boutique hotels, unique restaurants, family getaways, and farms/gardens to produce organic foods for the local eateries, as well as local families and business that benefit from the investments of foreigners.
It is entrepreneurial heaven, filled with permaculture enthusiasts, foodies, eco villages, artists, surfers, famers, cob builders, and local craftsmen.
Our plan is to live in the resort side, while hosting family/friends/airbnb stays, which won’t be open to the public. But on the beach side, as the restaurant is already up and running and bringing in good business, we’ll just plan to keep it running under the direction of the local Nicaraguan managers. This gives us lots of flexibility and contributes jobs to the local economy.
As we were leaving Canada, we knew two things: we would be gone for a year, and we were searching for a second footprint to able to invest in a place with more year-round sun. We were considering Texas, Florida, Tennessee (not as much sun, but less winter!), and Nicaragua. I’m mostly not exaggerating to say I looked at 1,000’s of properties in these areas over the last year. Arriving in Florida felt SO good, but I ***knew*** when I found this sanctuary in Central America a few weeks ago that God’s fingerprints were all over this spot for us.
The kids are already anticipating eating the coconuts from the trees on the property, daily swimming, horseback riding, learning to surf, and sledding down a volcano (it’s a thing!).
As of today, flights from Toronto to Managua are $246… making the whole endeavour of getting there and back incredibly feasible (and a lot more simple than the extended scenic route we took!).
Can’t wait for you to visit us… though I suppose we have to get there first.
I’m including some pictures so that you can get a sense of the place. It’s bright, beautiful and so inviting.
